Put another way, for all of our recent success, the company has not sold adverts during the good times. In this study, we test the often-assumed 'first to suffer, first to recover' relationship between advertising and the economy, to provide:

* Hard evidence of this causal relationship, with data suggesting advertising is more strongly linked to investment and consumption than GDP.
* New insights on the performance of four big marcomms groups in the UK, providing further evidence that the recovery is underway.
* Better tools for measuring volume and value to help understand the performance of advertising in a digital age.

Will Page, Director of Economics at Spotify said: "As the economy enters a recovery, this study draws attention to the productivity of advertising. With Spotify targeting ads by age, sex, genre, location and time of day, we no longer need to assume – as John Wanamaker famously remarked – that half of the money spent on advertising is wasted."

Chris Maples, European VP of Spotify said: "By innovating through the downturn, we are perfectly placed to capitalise on the recovery, and expand the opportunities facing the digital advertising market in the future."